Gartner Group issues 10 resolutions to CIOs for 2005
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Have you read the latest from Gartner? To help technology workers meet the challenges of 2005, Gartner has released a list of top 10 resolutions for the CIO, advising that they:
1. Create alternative plans for the unpredictable year.
2. Decide whether they want to be technology managers or business managers with IT knowledge, and invest in the appropriate skills.
3. Use regulatory compliance demands to invest in related, strategic areas.
4. Get the IT staff media-ready and try to foster external public relations.
5. Drop "on time and on budget" as a key performance indicator for IT staff, noting that this a basic requirement. Set new performance indicators above and beyond that.
6. Get hands-on experience on some new key technologies.
7. Combat IT complexity by creating simplification policies.
8. Elevate business process thinking to the management level, by deciding the process first and applications second, for example.
9. Build a relationship and collaborate with the human resources director on strategy for IT staff changes.
10. Critically review the capability of your IT organization and it leaders.
It is refreshing to finally see evidence in the analyst community of process oriented thinking. Nonetheless, as so many IT organizations continue to struggle with delivering on time and on budget and as so many "early" technology investments have failed to deliver, it is a bit disappointing, though not surprising, to see Gartner advocating dropping on time, on budget as a key measurement and to also see Gartner advocating getting hands-on experience with some new technology. What would I have liked to have seen in the top 10..? How about advocating continuous process improvement and taking actions to improve upon the score, rather than changing what we measure. And how about exploring the capabilities and fully aligning the technologies that IT has already invested in, uses, and knows into our processes and best practices, rather than playing with new expensive technology toys. Now that would be "magical" and would probably make for a good quadrant. One doesn't expect Gartner Group to know much about or care much about CMM, PMM, etc., but one would have thought they would have understood the drivers that have led to EVMS ANSI/EIA-748 and Sarbanes-Oxley. Please comment. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
Gartner Group promotes the latest fads and vendor hype. Like supermarket tabloids, it sells. You gotta give them credit, they get a lot of mileage and money out of those magic quadrant reports. That's my $.02 worth. Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Dear Scott, I think comparing Gartner Group to supermarket tabloids is an excellent comparison. They both fill a need, anticipate what we want, and they both have to be current and competitive to survive. The supermarket tabloid costs 50 cents, a Gartner report cost 500 dollars, both a bargain for the value. But seriously, Gartner is the authoritative consultancy offering research, benchmarking (not benchmarketing), and independent consulting. I was not seeking to start a "bash" Gartner thread, they are the best. Rather, I was seeking to start a "Deming" inspired dialog that better balances technology features and hype of the day with real process improvement approaches and strategies that work, and not just for the Fortune 500, but most any IT department and project organization, and that do not necessarily have to entail new technology investment or even spending a lot of money. Toward that aim, it does seem that Gartner continually promotes new technology investment over other such alternatives. Any thoughts on that or comments in general..? Thanks again for your reply. Cheers. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
Anonymous
You know what I would like to see? For every magic quadrant report like the PPM one, Gartner should disclose how much money each of the vendors spent with them. Saving Changes...
I see where one young boy has just passed 500 hours sitting in a treetop. There is a good deal of discussion as to what to do with a civilization that produces prodigies like that. Wouldn't it be a good idea to take his ladder away from him and leave him up there?
